


Introspection

by SilverAmoebasquid



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: 12/10 KAWASHIRA DAY, Gen, kenjirou suffers, sorry bab, sorry i cant be bothered to write anything romantic. platonic nonsense is my true passion, the joys of friendship, the joys of having a roommate who sucks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-13 08:10:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12979809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverAmoebasquid/pseuds/SilverAmoebasquid
Summary: As roommates, Taichi and Kenjirou learn a lot of valuable teamwork.





	Introspection

Taichi opened bleary eyes to sun streaming through the hastily thrown back curtains. His phone alarm was going off and evidently had been for a few minutes already but he’d fallen asleep the night before with his eyes buried in the glow of the screen so the speaker was muffled in his t-shirt where it had fallen from his unconscious hands onto his chest.

Groaning, Taichi turned fumbled for the green button to shut it off and rolled to the very edge of the mattress, staring at the ground. If he fell asleep again, he’d end up on the floor. This was the only way he could ensure he wouldn’t doze off again if— Yeah, Kenjirou wasn’t in the room to wake him back up. Taichi figured he’d gotten up earlier to be productive or something dumb like that.

Taking another labored breath, Taichi dragged himself into a sitting position and rubbed at his eyes. He had just under a half hour to be in class. He was getting food or a shower at this pace. Not both.

Food was definitely the priority here.

Taichi stumbled into the bathroom for just a few minutes, only long enough to push his toothbrush around his mouth and pee. A piece of paper clung to the mirror, bordered by clear tape and marked with seven exclamation marks drawn in red marker. That might be important.

Still having trouble getting his tired eyes to focus, Taichi read over the note written in Kenjirou’s simple cursive. “ _Something, something_ **meet me back** _blah blah_ **after class** **STAT** _blah_.”

“Got it,” Taichi muttered as he exited the bathroom again to get something from the cafeteria quickly and hopefully only be a couple minutes late to class.

 

Once some toast had been acquired, Taichi felt at least slightly more awake. With proper fuel, his brain clicked and whirred to life, reminding him of some homework he needed to do while the teacher was talking. Oh, and there was that note on the bathroom mirror. What had that said again?

Taichi walked to class munching a strip of bacon, unsure if it was his fourth or fifth after the three pieces of toast. He always ended up with way more breakfast than planned. He could never keep track of how much he was even putting on his plate in his half-conscious state.

Right, the note. Wait, Kenjirou needed help with stats homework? Was that what that was about? That was rare. Taichi knew his roommate didn’t care for statistics but he was decent at it. It was even rarer that Kenjirou would stoop to the level of asking Taichi for help. Taichi wasn’t even sure if he could help. Whatever. Kenjirou had wanted to meet him somewhere... Probably the common room where he liked to study in the afternoons when they didn’t have volleyball practice.

Content with that, Taichi enjoyed the first half an hour of class. Then his phone battery died.

He leaned back in his chair and sighed, sliding the useless piece of metal back into his backpack. Now what was he supposed to do under the desk instead of paying attention?

Subtly, Taichi dug through a couple pockets of his bag to see if he had a portable charger. Of course, he didn’t. He supposed it was just that sort of day where he woke up still tired, Kenjirou wanted fucking math help, and he hadn’t plugged his phone in before bed or grabbed an extra charge pack. Typical.

 

The day drifted by like clouds blown across the sky by a slow, summer breeze until Taichi was about ready to fall back asleep with the sun on his face and the soft sounds of wind and the occasional bout of birdsong to lull him into—

Taichi’s head snapped back up as everyone was picking up their belongings and rushing from the classroom, relieved to be free for the day.

A little more lethargically than the average restless high schooler, Taichi gathered his own supplies and left as well, making his way through the crowded hallways to the commons.

It was always so busy here right after class got out and Taichi would never understand why Kenjirou liked to study here. It was loud and people were always doing dumb shit. On this particular afternoon, a group of students that Taichi suspected to be third years though he couldn’t be sure had started some sort of game. They were sitting in the center of the floor, holding hands and chanting something as two of their members— Woah, was that a knife? Yeah, one of them was chasing another with a butter knife while other laughed and ran. A lot of the uninvolved people in the commons were stealing looks and laughing as well.

Taichi paid them all little mind and swept his gaze over the room, on the hunt for his roommate. Honestly, why Kenjirou would pick here of all places was beyond Taichi. Taking utensils from the cafeteria and running were both against the rules, most likely as was trying to stab someone with said taken utensil and knocking over some first-year girl while running. Where was Kenjirou? Was he watching this? He would be so mad about all the rule breaking and Taichi really wanted to see his expression. His anger was really funny as long as it wasn’t directed at him (it was funny then too; Taichi usually just didn’t have time to appreciate it before he was in mortal danger).

Not seeing his shorter companion, Taichi took a seat at an empty table and took out some of his own homework. He flicked his pen across the table between his hands for a while and wondered how long he would need to stare at his assignment before it would burst into flames and he wouldn’t have to do it. Maybe he could get Kenjirou to do it for him. Then again, doing other people’s homework was against the rules. Hypothetically, without the rule in place, it wouldn’t be hard at all to convince him. Taichi supposed that was why it needed to be made a rule; for the sake of the rule-following nerds who were most capable of doing other people’s assignments.

There might be a way around it though. Taichi set his chin down on the table, staring cross-eyed at his pen and thinking about what he might be able to bribe Kenjirou with.

 

Taichi’s eyes snapped back open and the sun was a lot lower in the sky than before. There were also a lot fewer people in the commons. The murder duck-duck-goose players were nowhere in sight.

Sighing, Taichi stood up and gathered his things back up. Where the hell was Kenjirou? Taichi wished his phone wasn’t dead so he could text him. He supposed he could’ve gotten a charger from the dorm after class but it was a little late for that now. Had Taichi been set up for some reason? It better not be revenge for something. Taichi didn’t think he’d even done anything lately that would warrant revenge. Shitty revenge plan though; all that Taichi had suffered through was a much-desired nap. Either way, he headed back to the dorm, not exactly sure what to expect. He was betting on a smug grin. Or maybe Kenjirou was dead. What else would make him miss a study session that he himself asked for?

Instead, Taichi opened the door to rage.

“Where the  _ fuck _ have you been!?”

Taichi stared at Kenjirou, turned around in his desk chair, a mess of paper and clothing spilling out of the drawer and the shelf and from under the bed... Some of it was his stuff too. “Huh?” Taichi asked intelligently.

Kenjirou sighed loudly, smacking the palm of his hand against his forehead and standing up, stalking into the bathroom and pulling the note off the mirror. “Did you see this when you woke up?”

“Yeah?”

“What. Does. It. Say.” Kenjirou held the paper centimeters away from Taichi’s face.

Taichi pulled back slightly in order to read the note. “Oh. ‘Meet me back here to clean up our stuff after class STAT.’ ” Taichi let out a half scoff. “Oops. I was in the commons. I thought you wanted help with stats homework.”

Kenjirou closed his eyes, looking like he was barely containing an explosion. “How did you... Nevermind I don’t care. Fuck you.”

Looking over Kenjirou’s shoulder at the disaster state the room was in, Taichi raised one eyebrow. “It doesn’t look very clean in here. I see why you wanted my help.”

“That’s because I only had a half an hour and I was trying to do it by myself! I was just trying to get all your shit off the fucking floor as quickly as possible!”

“You have as much shit on the floor as I do... Wait, why the cleaning race?”

Taichi’s arm was forcefully wrenched behind his back as he was turned around and shoved out of the room. Two steps down the hallway a poster hung on the wall reading “ROOM INSPECTIONS” in big letters with the dates and times of each hall in smaller font underneath. Sure enough, their hall had been inspected just about an hour ago. That explained it.

“Did you miss this note too?” Kenjirou growled, pushing Taichi up against the wall so his forehead smacked the poster.

“I kinda didn’t pay attention to it,” Taichi admitted. “I thought it said ‘INTROSPECTION’. They’re always trying to inspire us with cheesy stuff like that at this school. Do you ever notice how much motivation propaganda is in the hallways?”

“Are you even LITERATE!?” Kenjirou screamed, practically throwing Taichi back inside their shared dorm.

Taichi stumbled, almost tripping on a pile of stuff on the floor. “So how did the inspection go?”

With narrowed eyes, Kenjirou shoved a small stack of books off his bed and sat down. “Well, first of all, we’re both supposed to be present. You have food in your desk. Which is a no-no. And also gross. And you have like fifteen things plugged into a power strip off that one outlet. Which is a fire hazard. Also excessive clutter. Because I was fucking trying to clean everything up without your help. Dipshit.”

“So... did we pass?”

Kenjirou groaned and grabbed a paper off his desk to hand over to Taichi, looking more exhausted than angry now.

“So they’re gonna re-check our stuff tomorrow. That’s fine. Calm down.”

“Taichi, what have you learned today about your abilities to fucking read?” Kenjirou was back on the bed with his eyes shut and his forehead creased.

Taichi read on, finding the detention notice tacked on at the bottom. “Oh. Just what I want, to have some lecture me about fire safety while I write a report about ‘what I did wrong and what remediation I deserve for it.’ ”

Kenjirou pulled a pillow over his face so his speech was somewhat muffled. “So you can quote the handbook, but you can’t fucking pay enough attention to know we have inspections? Those posters have been there for like two weeks. Inspections are the reason we don’t have volleyball practice today. And I’m pretty sure we’ve talked about this at least once.”

Taichi shrugged, reading back over both of their names on the detention notice. “Back in detention, huh. I thought you were going straight.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“Looks like things haven’t changed much since your delinquent days in middle school, huh, Kenjirou.”

“You’re dead to me.”

“Is this better or worse than the time you got kicked out of the chess club as a first year.”

“I regret telling you that story.”

“At least this isn’t a fight where you ended up with a black eye.”

“You’re about to.”

Taichi grinned and sat down at his desk. The food he kept in the drawer was still there. Good. It wasn’t gross. It was within the sell-by date. He couldn’t help when he was hungry. Like right now, stuck between lunch and dinner when the cafeteria was closed.

 

When Taichi laid down to sleep that night, Kenjirou wasn’t in the room. They’d somewhat picked up their stuff, at least so tomorrow they would pass the make-up inspection, and then the shorter second year had grabbed his backpack and fled the room.

Maybe he was doing stats in the commons, Taichi thought with a chuckle before laying down. Hell, maybe Kenjirou was moping about detention; Taichi didn’t really care. It had been an exhausting day and he just wanted a few peaceful hours in the dark, playing on his phone before he would pass out and have to face the next new day.

 

The next new day, as it happened, started off fairly similarly. Taichi awoke, alone in the room and not feeling particularly rested. He half-wondered if Kenjirou had even come back last night or if he was still in the time-out he’d put himself in for breaking the rules.

Taichi sat up and noticed what was different.

A large poster hung on the door, looking like the inspection poster from the hall. Had Kenjirou stolen it and hung it where Taichi would see it out of spite?

Upon closer examination, Taichi snickered. It wasn’t the same poster, but something that had come from the nice printer in the teacher offices that Kenjirou used his goody-goody status to access.

In the same block letters as the original, this poster read “INTROSPECTION” across the top. Barely smaller beneath that, “fucking think about what you’ve done, shitstain. This is your fault.”

Taichi was still smiling as he left the room for the morning. They had detention a little later in the afternoon so he supposed he’d have plenty of time for some introspection.


End file.
